Digital Lifescapes

It's not economically viable to upgrade the current UK mobile broadband networks to address traffic demands and improve user experience until 2015, according to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media . Due to the dense deployment needed to meet coverage requirements, UK HSPA networks will be able to handle current and future traffic demands in the medium-term. Informa does not expect traffic congestion to start appearing until 2013 -- and even then only in certain high-usage areas. As such, Informa believes that large-scale 4G LTE deployments are not a required solution, unless user behavior changes significantly -- putting additional strain on mobile broadband networks. "UK mobile broadband operators are faced with fierce competition while margins from voice are shrinking. Even though there is growing demand for mobile data by smartphones and USB modems, current UK mobile network deployments are so dense that it would make the introduction of LTE both a

According to the latest market study by ABI Research , annual mobile application downloads will continue to increase and eventually peak in 2013, with Asia-Pacific becoming a key growth market. With North America and Europe slowly reaching maturity after experiencing a period of high growth, emerging countries in the Asian market are expected to take the spotlight. According to ABI's latest forecasts, application downloads in Asia-Pacific will experience a CAGR of early 30 percent and growth in application revenues of just over 20 percent during the period 2009-2015. Apple iOS and Google Android handset owners currently account for 75 percent of total application downloads and the are expected to continue leading the market until 2015. "We are getting more announcements of 3G networks about to launch commercially in Asian countries such as India, and more smartphones being shipped to Asia. This will prime these large untapped markets for mobile application downloads,&q

As American marketers choose to invest more of their budget in social media marketing and search engine optimization activities, a new eMarketer report highlights the accelerating downside for traditional advertising. Is 2011 set to be the year of Facebook, even among search marketers? Based on what U.S. advertisers told search marketing agency Covario, it's definitely the year that social media and social networking is adopted by everyone -- including the prior market laggards. Traditional advertisers that are also savvy about unpaid search results have discovered how social media marketing can help build their search engine optimization efforts. Respondents to the Covario survey said their top priority for SEO next year was integration with social media programs. Social media will also play an important part in paid search efforts next year. Search ad campaigns on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn were top of mind for nearly half of advertisers surveyed -- far ahead of p

The development and ongoing adoption of social networking sites and the increasing use of feature-rich mobile smartphones have recently brought online gaming to the mainstream consumer market. The rise of the virtual goods revenue model, which allows people to play for free and later pay for individual items within the online game or virtual world, has also contributed to explosive revenue growth of this market. In-Stat now forecasts that by the end of 2010, over $7 billion will have been spent on virtual goods. "Traditionally computer games have been the realm of teenage boys. However, social networking and pervasive smartphones are driving gaming beyond this core base," says Vahid Dejwakh, Industry Analyst at In-Stat. Before, the gamer had to go and specifically find games he or she wanted to play, but now games are delivered via your social networking profile and your mobile phone. In-Stat's latest market study findings include: - The top 10 virtual goods

comScore released market data showing that 175 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in October for an average of 15.1 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.4 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property with 146.3 million unique viewers. Yahoo! Sites captured the #2 spot with 53.8 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital, jumping 4 positions in October with 52.9 million viewers. VEVO secured fourth place with 47.6 million viewers, closely followed by Facebook.com with 47.4 million. Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions, crossing the 2.0 billion mark in October, and average time spent per viewer at 272 minutes, or 4.5 hours. Americans viewed more than 4.6 billion video ads in October, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at a record 1.1 billion. Tremor Med

The mobile phone applications market continues to grow. According to the latest market study by Generator Research , in 2015 over 255 million people worldwide will have downloaded and used mobile applications -- which represents about 22 percent of the worldwide smartphone user base. Meanwhile, the revenue from mobile applications -- including in-app payments -- will grow to over $23 billion in less than five years. By way of comparison, according to IFPI -- the recorded music industry trade group -- the value of worldwide sales of recorded music in 2009 was $17 billion. The modern mobile applications market is only 5 years old, whereas the recorded music industry is over 100 years old. Although the mobile application market was pioneered in the late 1990s by companies like Nokia, the adoption was limited to mobile-savvy users who were prepared to spend time working around the technical intricacies and clumsy user interfaces typical of early smartphones. However, the launch of

American small businesses are embracing current mobile phone technology to increase their productivity. The total Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) smartphone market will grow 18 percent in 2014 compared to 2010, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . The SOHO business category is comprised of U.S. businesses with one to four employees. In this category, the education and professional services sector will be the highest growth vertical market segment. "Smartphone purchases across all verticals and all U.S. business sizes will increase 14 percent in 2014 compared to 2010," says Frank Dickson, In-Stat Research Vice President. As both manufacturers and service providers increase the number of smartphone models and applications, In-Stat sees U.S. businesses finding greater utility from smartphones, thus enhancing worker productivity. The return on investment for providing smartphones is easily understood by these companies. The total U.S. business handset mar

During the ongoing global recession and an increasingly competitive telecommunications environment, cable's triple-play of video, voice, and high-speed data services continues to attract new subscribers. However, while worldwide growth in cable pay-TV video subscribers has been impressive, the North American and European growth has essentially halted -- those market are saturated and are already in a decline. The majority of new cable TV subscribers will come from China (with low-cost services, when compared to the saturated markets), which will be the primary market that drives worldwide cable TV subscribers to over 500 million by 2014, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . Meanwhile, the Latin America market is showing strong growth across all three of the triple-play components of the video, modem, and telephony service bundle. "In the past, most cable TV operators viewed themselves simply as video service providers," says Mike Paxton, Principal Ana

According to the latest market study by eMarketer , internet users in the United Kingdom have embraced the web and numerous online applications, but some demographic groups still remain offline. eMarketer estimates more than 44 million people are online in the UK in 2010 and nearly 70 percent of all households have broadband access -- a higher rate of penetration compared to the U.S. market. "The cultural divide between web users and non-users is widening," said Karin von Abrams, senior analyst at eMarketer. "For the majority of marketers, though, this is not a problem; their audiences are online in ever-greater numbers." Apparently, Internet users of all ages are increasingly multitasking, connecting with brands on multiple platforms and responding directly to marketer campaigns, promotions and other offers online or via mobile. Mobile web use, via smartphones, is up sharply in the UK. About 31 percent of Internet users said they went online via mobile p

A mobile Internet access hotspot, a device that connects to a wireless broadband service and provides a shared Wi-Fi LAN capability, is a relatively new concept -- with the first devices appearing during the last two years. Yet, the number and types of mobile hotspots is growing almost daily and In-Stat now forecasts that revenue from standalone mobile hotspot devices will approach $500 million by the end of 2010. Mobile hotspot service revenue is projected to reach into the tens of billions of dollars annually. "Mobile hotspot device shipments are expected to grow for several years, but we expect some jockeying for the top position occurring between device categories," says Allen Nogee, Principal Analyst at In-Stat. Smartphones with embedded mobile hotspots have already cut into shipments for battery-powered mobile hotspot devices. Automotive hotspot devices might do the same. Standalone mobile hotspot adoption will increase as they're positioned as home gateway

As consumers demanded greater flexibility and convenience in acquiring entertainment content, personalization of the user experience wasn't merely a nice-to-have feature -- it became a key requirement. Unfortunately, most traditional pay-TV providers failed the test of providing more consumer-centric offerings. That mistake may prove to be deeply regrettable. On-demand viewing of TV programs and movies in the U.S. will generate $10 billion dollars in online video annual revenue. In contrast, revenue from retail DVD video disc sales and rentals will continue in decline, with no future leveling in sight. Also, traditional pay-per-view service revenues are still flat across the board. According to the latest In-Stat market assessment, there will be three growing on-demand video revenue streams: - Transaction- Video-on-Demand (T-VOD) encompasses online TV rentals, pay-TV VOD rentals and pay-per-view. - Subscription VOD (S-VOD) includes online video subscription services, pre

Delegates at the recent Westminster e-Forum were warned by Point Topic that the £530 million allocated to the planned broadband infrastructure development across the UK is inadequate funding. The warning came from Point Topic Chief Analyst, Tim Johnson. Speaking to an audience of top broadband executives and politicians, Mr Johnson said, "The Coalition says it aims to provide the UK with the best superfast broadband in Europe, with a minimum 2 megabits per second connection speed for every household. To hit that they will have to find a lot more money from somewhere." For example, Point Topic estimates that about 6.3 million homes and businesses will need some degree of subsidy to get superfast broadband services at an affordable price. But the whole amount proposed in the Spending Review would be needed just for the 900,000 or so who would require the biggest subsidy, leaving 5.4 million without up-to-date broadband services. Johnson pointed out that the French are n

According to the latest market study by ABI Research , the Asia-Pacific region is expected to consume 2,400 petabytes of mobile data annually by 2015, an estimated 23 percent of global data traffic. The Asia-Pacific region is close behind North America, the global market leader with an expected consumption of 3,100 petabytes of mobile data. However, mobile Internet services are forecast to generate $80 billion in Asia-Pacific, which only accounts for 14.5 percent of global revenue. The disparity between high data consumption and low revenue contribution will largely be attributed to India's emerging 3G networks, which will be major contributors to the Asia-Pacific region's overall mobile traffic. "In emerging markets such as India where penetration of personal computers is low, mobile Internet on handsets will be popular among consumers due to its affordability and portability," says ABI Research research associate Fei Feng Seet. Competition is expected to d

comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending September 2010. The report ranked the leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), smartphone operating system (OS) platforms and associated applications in the U.S. market. The September report found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 23.5 percent market share, while RIM led among smartphone platforms with 37.3 percent market share. For the three month average period ending in September, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 23.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 0.7 percentage points from the three month period ending in June. LG ranked second with 21.1 percent share, followed by Motorola (18.4 percent share), RIM (9.3 percent share, up 0.5 percentage points) and Nokia (7.4 percent share). 58.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three mo

China's consumer market is the second-largest in the world, making economists, marketers and brand managers all bullish about the nation's upside potential. Moreover, a growing percentage of the population has access to the public Internet. Advertisers are eager to reach those Chinese consumers. eMarketer estimates that online advertising spending in China will reach $3.7 billion this year -- up 37 percent over 2009. Double-digit growth rates will continue through 2014, when ad spending in China will hit $9.5 billion -- more than double of this year's total. "Online advertising spending will outpace all other media, as local and global brands target an internet user population larger than the entire population of the U.S.," said Mike Froggatt, eMarketer research analyst. Online is dominated by display and rich media, but search advertising is gaining quickly. eMarketer estimates display spending in China at $1.78 billion this year, compared with $1.44

Growth in wireless data spending by U.S. businesses will slow, moving down from an annual growth rate of 5.2 percent during 2009-2010 to 2.5 percent during 2013-2014, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . Overall, In-Stat expects that U.S. businesses will spend close to $27 billion on wireless data in 2010. "The strongest growth comes from the Administrative and Support Services, and the Education and the Professional Services verticals," says Frank Dickson, VP Research, Mobile Internet at In-Stat. The mining vertical segment will have the steepest percentage decline, dropping from a 10 percent growth rate for 2009-2010 to a (-2 percent) contraction in 2013-2014. I believe there's still a considerable upside opportunity in the U.S. market, but that growth will require significantly more creative -- enterprise user-centric -- market development activities. The current marketing approach, to let the customers define the value prop and promote the serv

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media , mobile smartphone users generate two-thirds of the total mobile network traffic worldwide, despite the fact that only 13 percent of mobile phone service subscribers currently use smartphones. Smartphone users spend more time on the Internet, and the data traffic that each one generates -- their average traffic per user (ATPU) -- will increase by a staggering 700 percent over the next five years. Informa estimates that ATPU per smartphone currently averages 85MB per month. The iPhone is the highest-traffic-generating device followed by Android devices. It will retain this lead because Android devices will be spread across high-, mid- and low-user segments. ATPU is a new metric devised by Informa to help the mobile industry measure the potential of new services and revenue streams -- such as mobile advertising. It could be a key differentiating parameter for judging the popularity of different OS platforms and r

The costly failure of Qualcomm's FLO TV venture in North America will likely be used by business school professors as case study material -- to demonstrate how misguided product and market development strategy can lead to lost opportunity. But it's just one of the lessons-learned about mobile TV service launches. Free-to-Air broadcast analog mobile video is booming in Latin America and China, and digital mobile TV services are ramping up throughout Asia, as well as Latin America. In the U.S. market, new ATSC mobile DTV services are launching and will drive solid growth in a few short years. As a result, In-Stat forecasts that the worldwide market value of mobile TV tuners to exceed $400 million by 2014. "The biggest problem for mobile TV services is that they are developing on a country-by-country basis," says Gerry Kaufhold, Principal Analyst at In-Stat. "The fragmentation of standards in different regions with different adoption rates, poses a challe

Total shipments of mobile phone handsets are expected to total 1.34 billion by 2010 and should maintain their momentum all the way to 2015 -- with more than 1.7 billion in handset shipments. "The Asia-Pacific region currently makes the largest contribution to global handset sales," says ABI Research industry analyst Celia Bo. Handset sales are projected to increase 9 percent this year compared to 2009, and will account for 38 percent of total shipments. China is clearly a major source of handset demand, but it is not the only one. India and Indonesia are also expanding their domestic demand. The Indian handset market is expected to grow from 84.3 million handsets in 2009 to 104 million in 2010, a Year-over-Year growth of 24 percent. Within Indonesia, many of its 240 million people confidently purchased 33 million handsets in 2009 -- that figure is expected to surpass 37 million by the end of 2010. Both markets have traditionally been fertile ground for Nokia distribu

I've recently shared details about the renewed interest in enterprise mobile data applications. That interest has included both internal and and external mobile service applications. A desire to enhance employee productivity is often at the core of this market development activity. According to the latest ABI Research industry vertical market analysis of mobile enterprise customers, global services business revenues are forecast to grow at a 4.3 percent CAGR over the next four years, reaching $133 billion by 2014. Enterprise practice director Dan Shey says, "Mobile revenue growth for services businesses is driven by data usage. Mobile messaging, information access and applications delivered to the growing cadre of enterprise mobile devices help employees in this sector improve productivity, and serve and win customers." Moreover, data services including text and email messaging, applications (apps), and data plans are a growing portion of this sector's revenues

Consider this U.S. retailer scenario. A customer calls a store about product availability. The product isn't in stock, so the in-store salesperson enters the consumer's mobile phone number into an automated alert system -- whereby an SMS message is sent to the consumer when the product is re-stocked. The consumer replies by SMS, and the product is put aside -- awaiting pick-up. If you live in the United States, when has a retailer offered this simple value-added service to you? Yes, it's a rhetorical question. I've been asking similar questions since I wrote a related editorial for Telephony magazine -- way back in 2004. Fast-forward to today. eMarketer reports that tech-savvy shoppers place great demands on multichannel retailers. A majority expect to be able to track, modify, complete and order from any channel -- according to a July 2010 survey from Sterling Commerce. Busy consumers expect "smart-shopping" options: from product research to purchase

Numerous attempts, since the early 1960s, have been made to develop and commercialize video telephony products and services. Most ventures have since proven to be unsuccessful. However, with the launch of mobile devices featuring front-facing cameras and pre-loaded mobile calling applications, interest in making real-time video calls on mobile phones has reemerged. In-Stat forecasts that mobile video calling revenue will exceed $1 billion by 2015. "The market for mobile video calling is hardly new," says Frank Dickson, VP, Mobile Internet at In-Stat. He adds, "What is new is implementing mobile video calling over IP in a significant way. Apple's launch of the iPhone 4 and Facetime marks the point at which the competition for mobile video calling dominance began in earnest. Apple's capability to revolutionize the mobile video calling market is very real and no one in the ecosystem wants to be left behind." In-Stat's market study found the foll

The global market for smartphones continues to forge ahead at a record pace. According to the latest market study by ABI Research , smartphones made up 19 percent of all handsets shipped in the second quarter -- that represents a 12 percent increase over the first quarter, and a 50 percent jump compared to the same quarter in 2009. ABI's senior analyst Michael Morgan says that growth is being driven by falling handset prices. Cost is no longer much of an obstacle. One of the key remaining barriers to smartphone adoption in subsidized markets is now the cost of the data plan -- rather than the cost of the handset. According to ABI, 10 percent would normally be considered very good quarter to quarter growth, Morgan notes, but in the smartphone segment that's not the case. "The market is exploding," he says, "but there are so many players and so many operating systems that the question becomes, Can this market structure be sustained? Most observers say no -- i

The rapid growth in mobile phone game apps continues to drive the mobile gaming industry, with the total market on track to reach nearly $10 billion worldwide by 2014, according to the latest market study by Futuresource Consulting . In 2010, the Apple App Store alone, excluding iPad, is forecast to generate around $1.7 billion in games revenues globally, accounting for almost 30 percent of the total mobile gaming market. In comparison, traditional mobile games account for 60 percent, with other apps stores, in particular the Android market, representing the remaining 10 percent. "There is no doubt that paid-for apps games are leading the gaming charge," says Patrik Pfandler, Lead Mobile Analyst at Futuresource, "and our forecasts show apps-based gaming will account for more than 95 percent of total mobile gaming revenues by 2014 -- that's despite the glut of free game apps out there." The growth of in-apps payments is a key ingredient in the commercial

At the end of the second quarter of 2010, more than five billion mobile subscriptions were active worldwide, according to the latest market study by ABI Research . Emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and China have continued to add mobile connections at a rapid clip, and show no signs of slowing down. Africa led the growth cycle, registering 4 percent in new subscribers between 1Q and 2Q 2010. "Africa's low mobile penetration and usage are now attracting multinational mobile operators such as Bharti and Vodafone to the world's last remaining growth market," says ABI Research vice president, Jake Saunders. This new competition will lead to lower monthly tariffs and will allow more people on the continent to access a mobile phone. In developed markets, subscriptions continue to grow despite penetration levels greater than 100 percent. The introduction of high-speed 4G data technologies such as WiMAX and LTE will ensure that subscription growth remains robu

Why are the legacy U.S. cable service providers only now starting to address industry analyst concerns that they seem unprepared for the emerging alternative low-cost over-the-top (OTT) video offerings? Could this unfortunate scenario have been avoided, and did they have the means to counter this offensive? Traditionally, the cable TV industry has relied upon MPEG-based technology to transport digital video signals. But there has also been a longstanding awareness of Internet Protocol (IP) video solutions, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . There's three reasons that MSOs should have acted sooner: In comparison to MPEG, IP is considered to be less-expensive and more efficient. An integrated DOCSIS cable modem is a capable, and yet often underutilized, part of the digital cable set-top box. The availability and applications of IP video has expanded exponentially -- this ongoing transformation was apparent for several years. There's no mystery here. "Whe